But there were also others who did not wield any power. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. In the case of some of them the small population was so dispersed that a division such as that of barbers, blacksmiths, or carpenters, would be represented by only one or two households in each village and by a significant number of households in towns. If this rule was violated, i.e., if he married a girl with whom the Vanias did not have commensal relations, the maximum punishment, namely, excommunication, was imposed. The change from emphasis on hierarchy to emphasis on division is becoming increasingly significant in view of the growth of urban population both in absolute number and in relation to the total population. The associations activities in the field of marriage, such as reform to customs, rituals and ceremonies, and encouragement of inter-divisional marriages, are also seen by the members as a service to the nationas the castes method of creating a casteless modern society. It is not claimed that separation, or even repulsion, may not be present somewhere as an independent factor (1972: 346,n.55b). No analytical gains are therefore likely to occur by calling them by any other name. The boundaries of caste division were fairly clear in the village community. Pages in category "Social groups of Gujarat" The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. For example, if they belonged to two different second-order divisions, such as Shrimali and Modh, the punishment would be greater than if they belonged to two different ekdas within the Shrimali or the Modh division. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. Vankar - Wikipedia They have been grouped in Vaishya category of Varna system. Significantly, a large number of social thinkers and workers who propagated against the hierarchical features of caste came from urban centres. Which caste is Vaya surname? : r/gujarat - reddit.com Some of the other such divisions were Kathi, Dubla, Rabari, Bharwad, Mer (see Trivedi 1961), Vaghri, Machhi, Senwa, Vanzara, and Kharwa. The castes pervaded by hierarchy and hypergamy had large populations spread evenly from village to village and frequently also from village to town over a large area. The Rajputs in Radhvanaj, the village I have studied in central Gujarat, had no great difficulty in establishing their claim to being Rajputs: they owned substantial amounts of land under a traditional Rajput tenure, dominated village politics and possessed certain other traditional Rajput symbols. Typically, a village consists of the sections of various castes, ranging from those with just one household to those with over u hundred. A new view of the whole, comprising the rural and the urban and the various orders of caste divisions, should be evolved. In the second kind of area, indigenous Kolis live side-by-side with immigrant Kolis from an adjoining area. They co-existed in the highlands with tribes such as the Bhils, so much so that today frequently many high caste Gujaratis confuse them with Bhils, as did the earlier ethnographers. The two considered themselves different and separateof course, within the Kanbi foldwhere they happened to live together in the villages in the merger zone between north and central Gujarat and in towns. In other words, it did not involve a big jump from one place to another distant place. That there was room for flexibility and that the rule of caste endogamy could be violated at the highest level among the Rajputs was pointed out earlier. New Jersey had the highest population of Mehta families in 1920. I shall first provide an analysis of caste in the past roughly during the middle of the 19th century, and then deal with changes in the modern times. State Id State Name Castecode Caste Subcaste 4 GUJARAT 4001 AHIR SORATHA 4 GUJARAT 4002 AHIR 4 GUJARAT 4003 ANSARI 4 GUJARAT 4004 ANVIL BRAHMIN 4 GUJARAT 4005 ATIT BAYAJI BAKSHI PANCH 4 GUJARAT 4006 BAJANIYA 4 GUJARAT 4007 BAJIR . It was also an extreme example of a division having a highly differentiated internal hierarchy and practising hypergamy as an accepted norm. 1 0 obj It is argued that the various welfare programmes of each caste association, such as provision of medical facilities, scholarships and jobs for caste members contribute, in however small a way, to the solution of the nations problems. : 11-15, 57-75). They had an internal hierarchy similar to that of the Leva Kanbis, with tax-farmers and big landlords at the top and small landowners at the bottom. TOS 7. Literally, ekda meant unit, and gol circle, and both signified an endogamous unit. The co-residence of people belonging to two or more divisions of the lower orders within a division of a higher order has been a prominent feature of caste in towns and cities. Similarly, the Khedawal Brahmans were divided into Baj and Bhitra, the Nagar Brahmans into Grihastha and Bhikshuk, the Anavils into Desai and Bhathela, and the Kanbis into Kanbi and Patidar. Although the name of a Brahman or Vania division might be based on a place name, the division was not territorial in nature. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. While we do get evidence of fission of caste divisions of a higher order into two or more divisions of a lower order, the mere existence of divisions of a lower order should not be taken as evidence of fission in a division of a higher order. Each ekda or gol was composed of a definite number of families living in certain villages and/or towns. Report a Violation, Caste Stratification: Changing Rural Caste Stratification, Caste in Rural India: Specificities of Caste in Rural Society. The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) 3 0 obj These prefixes Visa and Dasa, were generally understood to be derived from the words for the numbers 20 (vis) and 10 (das), which suggested a descending order of status, but there is no definite evidence of such hierarchy in action. <>/Metadata 3086 0 R/ViewerPreferences 3087 0 R>> Caste Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Similarly, the Vanias were divided into such divisions as Disawal, Kapol, Khadayata, Lad, Modh, Nagar, Nima, Porwad, Shirmali, Vayada, and Zarola. The Kayasthas and Brahma-Kshatriyas, the so- called writer castes, employed mainly in the bureaucracy, and the Vahivancha Barots, genealogists and mythographers, were almost exclusively urban castes. These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. I have bits and pieces of information about relations between a considerable numbers of other lower-order divisions in their respective higher-order divisions. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"uGhRfiuY26l2oZgRlfZRFSp4BWPIIt7Gh61sQC1XrRU-3600-0"}; Advances in manufacturing technologies flooded markets in India and abroad with cheap, mass-produced fabrics that Indian handlooms could no longer compete with. This does not solve the problem if there are four orders of divisions of the kind found in Gujarat. 4 0 obj The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. This tendency reaches its culmination in the world of Dumont. There was an emphasis on being different and separate rather than on being higher and lower. The unit might possess some other corporate characteristics also. In all there were about eighty such divisions. Koli Patels are recognised as a Other Backward Class caste by Government of Gujarat. Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. For example, all Vania divisions were divided into a number of ekdas or gols. 2 0 obj It reflects, on the one hand, the political aspirations of Kolis guided by the importance of their numerical strength in electoral politics and on the other hand, the Rajputs attempt to regain power after the loss of their princely states and estates. In central Gujarat, at least from about the middle of the 18th century, the population of the wealthy and powerful Patidar section of the Kanbis also lived in townsan extremely interesting development of rich villages into towns, which I will not describe here. All of this information supports the point emerging from the above analysis, that frequently there was relatively little concern for ritual status between the second-order divisions within a first- order division than there was between the first-order divisions. ADVERTISEMENTS: Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat! An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. In the city, on the other hand, the population was divided into a large number of castes and each of most of them had a large population, frequently subdivided up to the third or the fourth order. The urban community included a large number of caste groups as well as social groups of other kinds which tended to be like communities with a great deal of internal cohesion. The significant point, however, is that there were small endogamous units which were not, like ekdas and tads, part of any higher-order division. In India Limbachiya is most frequent in: Maharashtra, where 70 percent reside, Gujarat . Within each of these divisions, small endogamous units (ekdas, gols, bandhos) were organized from time to time to get relief from the difficulties inherent in hypergamy. The migrants, many of whom came from heterogeneous urban centres of Gujarat, became part of an even more heterogeneous environment in Bombay. Data need to be collected over large areas by methods other than those used in village studies, castes need to be compared in the regional setting, and a new general approach, analytical framework, and conceptual apparatus need to be developed. The lowest stratum among the Khedawals tried to cope with the problem of scarcity of brides mainly by practising ignominious exchange marriage and by restricting marriage of sons in a family to the younger sons, if not to only the youngest. The main occupation of Vankars was the weaving of cloth. Most inter-divisional marriages take place between boys and girls belonging to the lowest order in the structure of divisions. Thus, while each second-order Koli division maintained its boundaries vis-a-vis other such divisions, each was linked with the Rajputs. I describe here three prominent units of the latter type, namely, Anavil, Leva Kanbi, and Khedawal Brahman. Although some of them set up shops in villages they rarely became full-fledged members of the village community. so roamed around clueless. The co-residence of people belonging to two or more divisions of a lower order within a division of a higher order has been a prominent feature of caste in towns and cities. Content Guidelines 2. In fact, inter-tad marriages have increased so much that the tads have more or less lost their identity and such marriages are no longer considered as violating the rule of tad endogamy. Although the people of one tad would talk about their superiority over those of another tad in an ekda, and the people of one ekda over those of another in a higher-order division, particularly in large towns where two or more tads and ekdas would be found living together, there was no articulate ranking and hypergamy among them. Although I have not, during my limited field work, come across hypergamous marriages between Rajputs and Bhils, ethnographic reports and other literature frequently refer to such marriages (see, for example, Naik 1956: 18f; Nath I960. A first-order division could be further divided into two or more second-order divisions. Since the beginning of the modern reform movement to encourage inter-caste marriages-most of which are in fact inter-tad or inter-ekda marriagesthe old process of fission into ekdas and tads has come to a halt, and it is, therefore, difficult to understand this process without making a systematic historical enquiry. There is enormous literature on these caste divisions from about the middle of the 19th century which includes census reports, gazetteers, [] The members of a kings caste were thus found not only in his own kingdom but in other kingdoms as well. As weaving is an art and forms one of the most important artisan community of India. Before publishing your articles on this site, please read the following pages: 1. Kolis were the largest first-order division in Gujarat. The highest stratum among the Leva Kanbi tried to maintain its position by practising polygyny and female infanticide, among other customs and institutions, as did the highest stratum among the Rajput. From the 15th century onwards we find historical references to political activities of Koli chieftains. Patel is a surname of the Koli caste of Gujarat in India which have most importance in the politics of Gujarat and Koli Patels of Saurashtra was most benefited under the rule of Indian National Congress party. Further, the castes there are unable to take cognizance of each other in terms of hierarchy or of occupation, and it is in this situation that they can be said to exist by virtue of their differences (296) it is the systematic recognition of difference which is most apparent. As for the size of other castes, I shall make mainly relative statements. The hypergamous tendency was never as sharp, pervasive and regular among the Vania divisions as among the Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals. The above brief analysis of change in caste in modern Gujarat has, I hope, indicated that an overall view of changes in caste in modern India should include a careful study of changes in rural as well as in urban areas in relation to their past. Second, there used to be intense intra-ekda politics, and tads were formed as a result of some continuing conflict among ekda leaders and over the trial of violation of ekda rules. The complex was provided a certain coherence and integrityin the pre- industrial time of slow communicationby a number of oral and literate traditions cultivated by cultural specialists such as priests, bards, genealogists and mythographers (see in this connection Shah and Shroff 1958). Since Rajput as a caste occurred all over northern, central and western India (literally, it means rulers son, ruling son), the discussion of Rajputs in Gujarat will inevitably draw us into their relationship with Rajputs in other regions. gujarati surnames castes ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. To illustrate, among the Khadayata or Modh Vanias, an increasing number of marriages take place between two or more tads within an ekda. The census operations, in particular, spread as they were over large areas, gave a great impetus to writings on what Srinivas has called the horizontal dimension of caste (1952: 31f;1966: 9,44,92,98-100,114-17). But there was also another process. Secondly, it is necessary to study intensively the pattern of inter-caste relations in urban centres as something differentat least hypotheticallyfrom the pattern in villages. Frequently, marriages were arranged in contravention of a particular rule after obtaining the permission of the council of leaders and paying a penalty in advance. There was also another important correlation. I hope to show in this paper how the principle of division is also a primary principle competing with the principle of hierarchy and having important implications for Indian society and culture. Here, usually, what mattered was the first-order division, as for example Brahman, Vania, Rajput, Kanbi, carpenter, barber, leather-worker, and so on.